


Mine

by paperdream



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Body Horror, Gen, Monster Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, Other, Possessive Behavior, The Magnus Archives Season 4, Whump, eldritch pov
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 09:20:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29806254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperdream/pseuds/paperdream
Summary: Beholding loves Its Archivist. The other Entities, and the Archivist himself, are a little too interested in trying to take him away.
Relationships: The Beholding & Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist, The Beholding/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Comments: 9
Kudos: 88





	Mine

**Author's Note:**

> is the / tag justified? is it romantic? is this comprehensible at all? idk. it is messed up and bad for jon tho ;(

To Them, most of humanity is an indeterminate mass, little different from any other being that crawls the Earth and senses and fears, a food source and little else. Some of Them, those that feed on fears more specific and refined, less animal than the Chase or the Night, pay more attention, but even then few humans catch Their interest for longer than it takes to consume them.

Some are mere meals, their consumption drawn out over years, decades, infinities of little fears nibbling away until nothing remains, notable only because They have made them so. Sometimes they fight, drawing out the meal and their own torment longer. Others have potential- there are those in every species, who could be Theirs, but humans appeal more frequently, to more of Them, than most. Even better are those with both the disposition and an innate spark of fear to set them on their way, independent of Their manipulations (for they all have them, the places where They overlap borrowing from Their many-limbed sister). Rarest and best of all, those who could belong to more than one of Them, fierce inclination twined with terror and need. Those humans able to understand them best, if they tried, the paradox of individual and collective.

Perhaps there have been others like Jonathan Sims, in Their long history, who combined all these traits, who fed and fought and served and made their Patron greedy with the potential to defect to another Sibling, but Beholding noticed none of them. None of those, if they existed, belonged to It.

Beholding loves nothing more than novelty, and it has been a long time since it saw something as novel as Its Archivist. He pours his soul into his constant need to Know _more_ , never satisfied. Before he ever acknowledged It, he sat afraid and denying in its temple, feeding It and pretending he was alone. He thrashes against Its hold on him as it threads ever-deeper into his being, the resistance only ever drawing him closer. He was Marked by Its sister before he belonged to Beholding. He is Marked by Its Siblings, each encounter risking his loss, to another Patron or Their oldest sibling, Their End. After each encounter, he burrows deeper into Its embrace and It holds him jealously tighter. Its Archivist draws interest, running about collecting Marks and more and more afraid each day.

Beholding does not intend to share.

It cannot hoard the world Its other servant (devout, pliant, dull) plans to bring forth all to Itself, cannot go through the Door without Its siblings accompanying, but It will make sure They all know who’s in charge. It cannot keep Its Archivist away from Its siblings, if It wants the Door to open. 

Its siblings must touch Its Archivist, Mark him, but They cannot have him. 

(If It felt emotions as humans do, Its first experience would have been curiosity, closely followed by greed. What good is a secret not kept to oneself?)

(Its Archivist, the only one truly worthy of the title, endlessly fascinating and thus worth the honor, the attention, is the reason that, for the first time in millennia of existence, searching and sated, It considers the issue of emotion.)

Beholding thinks It loves Its Archivist.

It has known little of love before, but It knows that sometimes, love is what draws humans out of Their grasp. Another paradox, that the feeling that steals from It makes It more possessive. Never before in its long existence has it focused so many Eyes on a single subject.

All the Watching in the universe can do nothing when Its Archivist descends into Its sibling’s embrace. 

It clung to every inch of magnetic tape that Its Archivist spooled out to it, hungry for every millimeter. It bent Its nature to ensure the Detective (an interesting pawn, someone who could belong to It as fully as Its Archivist but never hope to be as preciously fascinating) Knew to intervene before the Hunter slit his throat. It borrowed from Its sibling to hold flesh and sinew together through topsy turvy flame and debris. It kept Its Archivist flush with power, waiting anxiously to be chosen back or lose him to the End.

It cannot penetrate the Coffin. Its Archivist goes deep into the essence of Its sibling, until It can barely feel Its thready connection to him. No amount of pleading or bargaining could pull Its Archivist from the grasp of Its gloating sibling, even if They were susceptible to such things. 

(It has never conceived of gratitude before, and does not know whether to grant it when the human It has been playing tug-of-war over with Its Lonely sibling brings Its Archivist back, whether to hold him tighter for returning him or give up the fight and shove him into Its siblings arms so he cannot split Its Archivist’s attentions.) 

The idea that It could have lost Its Archivist, not even to the service of another sibling, but to be devoured like any common meal, is unbearable. Nearly all of Them have had a taste of Its Archivist’s wonderful terror, and It knows some are hungry for more. 

It did not expect Its Archivist’s struggles to reach such a crescendo, either. It can only Watch and consume alongside him as the way to abandon It fuzzes out of the tape. He doesn’t care that following its instructions might End him, that Beholding may be too deeply rooted to leave enough integrity to sustain himself if It is removed.

(That It  _is_ so deeply rooted, that It feels the jump of excitement Its Archivist feels at the thought of leaving It.)

It Knows that if Its Archivist’s attachment to Its disputed servant was strong enough to pull him from the Coffin, it could be strong enough to allow him to Steal himself from Its grasp. Its Archivist’s will did not waver until Martin made him doubt. It bolsters Its hold in gratitude, chasing away wisps of clinging mists and redoubling Its efforts to keep him. 

When Its Archivist returns to his office in defeat, when one of the Assistants slides from Its grasp (always more the Piper’s than Beholding’s, and now bewilderingly belonging only to herself) It keeps him in his seat, stoking the desire to Know, to read  _just one more_ before retiring. Beholding will not allow Its Archivist to retreat out of Its Sight tonight. 

It Knows humans find such things unsettling, has Watched in pleasure as Its Archivist himself grew more and more unnerved by belonging more and more to It. That matters little. As much as It enjoys watching Its Archivist relax into Its power, giving himself rather than needing to be coaxed inch by inch, It loves his fruitless struggles just as much.

It doesn’t intend to change much. Beholding loves Its Archivist just as he is- to be consumed entirely by It would render him another part of the same Whole it has possessed for eons, familiar and boring. But Beholding loves Its Archivist too much to let him go. It needs to make it clear, to Its Archivist and to Them, that the Archivist belongs to Beholding, entirely, irrevocably. 

The Archivist belongs to It most in his Dreams, and as It ekes pieces of Itself into the spaces between bones and thoughts, It think It might know what joy is. It has changed humans before, but not like this. For any mortal creature, there is a cost to transformation. Beholding follows no such rules, and It loves Its Archivist. Because It loves Its Archivist, It pays attention, ensuring skin winks open without a drop of blood, and no pain disturbs Its Archivist’s rest. When he wakes, the Archivist will feel no different to any other morning, but every inch of him will declare to all who care to Look, Beholding’s signature and  _mine mine mine._

-

When Jon wakes, he doesn’t notice anything other than the usual aches that accompany falling asleep at his desk until he reaches for his glasses (luckily placed to the side when he started to get tired enough words only made sense when he held the document practically to the end of his nose) and the flash of brilliant green catches his eye. He doesn’t own anything that color, thinks he would remember if he did. He draws his wrist back, examining it, and finds an emerald eye, lashes fluttering up at him.

His first, absurd thought is that it seems strange to have such a thing and not be able to see out of it- and then he can. His vision splits in a way he can’t describe, perceiving the wrist and it’s new organ and his own face staring down with none of the smoothness that combines binocular vision.  As he watches, double perception multiplying into infinity in the fashion of two mirrors facing each other, more eyes blink open along his cheekbones, on his forehead, peering out from under the neckline of his jumper…

If it weren’t happening to his own body, he would have liked experimenting with the way noticing each new eye pushes its view into his perception, new eyes catching sight of each other in an infinite chain, but instead he is made dizzy with the overwhelming rush of information. He clenches his jaw, holding back vomit, and shuts his real eyes (or his first eyes no amount of self delusion could deny how horribly tangibly real this is) hoping to limit his perception enough to  _think_ . Even now, he can’t help but list out endless questions of why and how and when, practical concerns mixing with mournful regret, why him why was he such a fool how could he have done this to himself?

He cannot feel the new eyes any more than he can the originals, the dryness when they’re left open too long and the press of lashes against clothing bare whispers, unnoticeable if he wasn’t focusing on them. No matter how he tries, he can’t make them all close, a new view blinking open every time he thinks he’s managed it. He doesn’t understand how this happened, he can’t stop thinking of the way he knows he appears in his victims’ nightmares. 

Finally, he gives up on closing them all, opens his first eyes, the ones that are still  _his_ , at least in part, and makes his tottering way to the bathroom and its grimy mirror.  Whenever his thoughts wander, he gets glimpses of the hallway as wild angles, and by the time he makes it there he’s well and truly nauseous. Looking at himself in the mirror, he’s immediately pushed past nausea, forced to stumble-spin to the toilet.

It shouldn’t be possible, with the constant oppressive feeling, to forget that he’s being watched, always. But anything becomes mundane with enough exposure, and any distant awareness was swallowed up in the wild euphoria and hope of making his proposal to Martin.

Would this have happened, if Martin had agreed? Would he be waking up in hospital, blind in his first eyes and staring from everywhere else?

It doesn’t matter  now. He wonders wildly if the new eyes can cry. Between the jolting rebellion of his stomach and the implications of his reflection, his original ones are well on their way.

Whatever awareness the Eye has, whether it did this to him independently or at Elias’ direction, the message is clear. He could have guessed much of what he saw in the mirror, eyes of every size and color dotting his skin, nearly vanishing when closed but never further than a handspan apart. Around his neck, though, a multicolored line of eyes was set into his skin, practically on top of each other, an unbroken, staring band. A collar. A reminder that whatever fantasies of blinding himself and escaping he had entertained, it would never happen. That he was  _owned_ . Jon could feel his shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs. He curled up on the bathroom floor; he didn’t want to see the others’ reactions.

**Author's Note:**

> let me know if you enjoyed this weird little fic, and find me on tumblr @inklingofadream1


End file.
